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Hello,

well, one thing i hate in all desktop environnments is the task bar that take some space on the screen.
But of course i like to have systray icons, clock and everything under my eyes at every moment.
So why not use the space available i each windows bar to put all these infos. And just have on the desktop a simple button to start apps.
Somebody tried once to explain to me that it was impossible to put anything in the window bar. Hum, that was before google put the chrome tabs in it.

i think as well it would be a big change for KDE, and a way to make a real difference with other environments.

What do you think?

Michroute

That's an interesting proposal. You are right when you say that the task bar takes up a lot of space, and it might be interesting to invest time into finding alternative ways.
But I think how you feel about this will really depend on your workflow. I for one cannot dispense of the task bar because I use the window list for task switching, and because I like knowing what applications are open and running. On the other hand, I barely see my desktop, so having the funktionality right ON the desktop would be next to useless to me.

Ubuntu's Unity goes a similar way to what you suggest, at least with maximized windows. When you maximize, the title bar disappears and the window control buttons are moved into the task bar (which is on top of the screen). While I do not habitually use Ubuntu, this behavior always confuses me on my wife's computer, and I do not think it is a good default behavior.

That said, again, I'm all for investigating what other options there are. The task bar does take up much space. I just depend on it in my workflow.

Do you mean something like that?

It is possible with KDE 4.8.4. Just remove unneeded plasmoids from panel, change it's width, place it anywhere you like and change setting to "Windows go below". For application launchers, you may create another panel, one that automatically hides itself. Or just put some plasmoids on desktop.
Of course right now it doesn't look too pleasant, but it's only matter of providing better plasma theme (perhaps one without transparent panels).